20 NBA Hall-of-Fame careers that were cut short by injury

NBA Hall-of-Fame career cut short: Ralph Sampson

Ralph Sampson was one of the most dominant players in college basketball history. He was a three-time national player of the year, made the Virginia Cavaliers a perennial title contender and was the first overall pick in the 1983 NBA Draft.

If we took a snapshot of Sampson’s first three seasons in the league and extrapolated them out for a dozen years he would have one of the best resumes in basketball history. Sampson came out of the gates averaging 21 points and 11.1 rebounds as a rookie, not to mention 2.4 blocks per game that were almost always momentum-shifting spikes that demoralized opponents. He was a two-way force that looked nigh unstoppable.

By his third season, he had teamed up with Hakeem Olajuwon and they took the Houston Rockets to the 1986 NBA Finals (beating Magic Johnson and the Showtime Lakers in the process), where they pushed Larry Bird and the Boston Celtics to six games. This was a Twin Towers juggernaut set up to be a power for years to come.

Then, suddenly, it all fell apart. Sampson began suffering knee and back injuries that worsened, keeping him out of the lineup and sapping his athleticism and impact when he did play. The Rockets cut him loose very quickly, trading him the next season, and Sampson would bounce around the league from there, never playing a full season the rest of his abbreviated career and averaging fewer than 20 minutes per game when he did.

Sampson’s star was as bright as they come to start his career, and then in a flash, it was snuffed out. He still made the Hall of Fame, buoyed by his college success, but if he had stayed healthy his career could have been magnificent.